


The Definition of Goodbye

by MsThunderFrost



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Communication Failure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insecurity, M/M, Men Crying, References to Depression, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsThunderFrost/pseuds/MsThunderFrost
Summary: “Really?” He cannot help the hint of irritation that begins to color his tone, “Because this,” he gestures between them wildly, “it doesn’t really seem like goodbye, mate.” He deflates a little, “You can’t just float in here and pretend like I didn’t catch you and Meg laughing it up about what an absolute screw-up I am.”Than’s features soften considerably, although most would still consider his expression to be stoic. “It is impolite to eavesdrop on other’s conversations, you know.”“You’re supposed to be my… my…” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He doesn’t know how to accurately describe their relationship anymore, not after… “You’re supposed to be my friend.”
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 285





	The Definition of Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Hades fic, so please be gentle! I just couldn't not write something about Meg and Thanatos' conversation right after Zag meets Than in Elysium. Please enjoy the angst <3
> 
> This is also written from the perspective of Than and Zag having had some form of romantic and/or physical relationship PRIOR to the start of the game.

It’d been three days since he’d last attempted to escape the Underworld.

Well, he _thinks_ that it’s been three days. Time is relative down here, where the only difference between night and day is a subtle shift in the gradient of the ever-present darkness. Even after thousands of years, he’s still not quite used to it. Just another thing to tack onto the ever-growing list of reasons why he’s a disappointment to his father.

It’s _also_ been three days since he encountered Thanatos in the verdant, blue-green fields of Elysium… He’d been excited to see him, to have a chance to talk to him after listening to his father blubber on about the seemingly endless stream of dead that were trickling in thanks to yet another of Lord Ares’ wars. But the only thing Thanatos had seemed interested in was telling him goodbye. He hadn’t understood what he’d meant at the time—not until Asterius had cleaved him in half with his war axe, sending him back to the House of Hades just in time to catch the tail-end of Thanatos and Megaera’s conversation in the lounge—

 _He's not welcome here_.

And okay… He’d been kind of expecting something of the sort from Meg for a while now. She’d been frosty with him ever since his first attempt to escape from Tartarus—and the closer that he inched toward the surface, the frostier of a reception he received when he was inevitably sent back home. It didn’t quite take the bite out of her words, but it made them a bit more… _tolerable_. What he didn’t quite understand was Thanatos’ answering silence. He’s known Than long enough to know that prolonged stretches of silence aren’t necessarily _bad_. They’re usually an indication that he is thinking deeply about something or other, but…

He knows that Than cannot take sides. Even if he does find a way to escape this hellscape, Than will still be bound to his father. But still… there is a part of him that aches for fear of what it will find on the surface. He thinks that life with his mother will be so much better than life in the Underworld, but… he’s basing _everything_ on second-hand knowledge from people that knew her however many thousands of years ago. He doesn’t _know_ —and as desperate as he is to escape, he’s also terrified of what it is that he might find. What it is that’s _waiting_ for him. If it’s not what he imagines, then… he supposes that there is no place, in heaven, or hell, or in-between, where he truly belongs.

He catches the flash of soft green light, which heralds the arrival of Death, out of the corner of his eye, “Do you intend to spend the rest of your days wallowing in bed? That seems a rather unorthodox method of attempting to reach the surface.”

“I’m not wallowing.” And he’s not, not really. He’s thinking about everything that he thought he knew, and everything that’d been blown to hell by one little conversation. “Why did you come for me in Elysium, Than?”

“I told you,” Thanatos says slowly, carefully, as if he is considering the weight of his every word, “to say goodbye.”

“Really?” He cannot help the hint of irritation that begins to color his tone, “Because this,” he gestures between them wildly, “it doesn’t really seem like _goodbye_ , mate.” He deflates a little, “You can’t just float in here and pretend like I didn’t catch you and Meg laughing it up about what an absolute _screw-up_ I am.”

Than’s features soften considerably, although most would still consider his expression to be stoic. “It is impolite to eavesdrop on other’s conversations, you know.”

“You’re supposed to be my… my…” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He doesn’t know how to accurately describe their relationship anymore, not after… “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

Thanatos raises one delicate silver brow, “I would not have tried to stop you, Zagreus. All I wanted was the courtesy of a goodbye. Instead, I had to discover from Hypnos that you’d come floating back along the River of Styx some _twenty_ times before finally reaching Elysium—,”

“Yes, well… I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore, now do you? You’ve made it quite clear that I’m no longer your concern.”

It occurs to him that this feels much too much like a break-up. But… perhaps they’d been broken up all this time, and he’d just been too blind, too naïve to see it. Perhaps Than had taken him leaving without so much as a word as him ending whatever it was between them, and that was why he had been so cold when they’d met in Elysium… why he hadn’t tried to defend him when Meg tore him down like that. Because Than saw his attempts to try and escape the Underworld as synonymous with attempting to escape _him_ , and that… that wasn’t it at all, but he hadn’t actually taken the time to attempt to _explain_ that to him, now had he?

He’d just kind of… _assumed_ that Than would know.

“…Do you know why it hurt so badly, to overhear what the two of you were talking about?” He asks. Thanatos remains silent. “I do not care if I cannot call the House my home anymore. But if I’m not welcome here… this is your home too, Than, and that would mean…”

_I want to be where you are._

_I want to be_ welcome _where you are_.

“So you’re just going to abandon your ambitions, then?” Thanatos asks. “Megaera isn’t likely to forgive you for killing her seven times now, just as Lord Hades isn’t apt to forget her repeated failures. You cannot erase the consequences of your actions simply because you do not like them.”

“No, I… I’m still going to keep trying to escape.” He lowers his mismatched eyes, “I guess… I just wanted to give you the goodbye you deserved, mate. In case I make it this time, that is.”

Thanatos looks like he wants to say something more, but eventually settles on: “Goodbye, Zagreus.”

He disappears in a flash of soft green light, leaving Zagreus alone to his thoughts—and his not-wallowing. Thanatos has left the House completely, to deal with another round of dead from Ares’ war, and Megaera has left to deal with Sisyphus. He thinks he remembers hearing his father mention that he’d summoned the remaining Furies to guard the exit to Tartarus, so he doesn’t know whose waiting for him anymore. He leaves the House with his head held high, even if everything within him feels as though it is breaking apart at the seams. Thanatos was supposed to be his one constant, his anchor in the midst of the storm…

But he guesses that that’s asking for—and expecting—to much.

That is, of course, until he sets foot in the Asphodel meadows, his body in horrendous amounts of pain after a bout with Alecto, and he hears that familiar, sepulchral bell. And he starts to think that maybe, he ought to rethink the definition of ‘goodbye’.


End file.
